Laugh Now, Cry Later: UPDATED
Red Wave. Blue Collapse. Blue Wave. Red Collapse. The Battle is ongoing. The Bullshit continues. It's Nothing New... Or Is It: UPDATED 11/14 - SEE BELOW (more…)
Words On Leaders and Politicians
Not Always The Same We cannot, of course, expect every leader to possess the wisdom of Lincoln or Mandela’s largeness of soul. But when we think about what questions might be…
Felon and Flakes and Fairy Tales, Oh My
Far-right Republican Congressman Mike Johnson, who is Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and second in line to the Presidency, is at it again in his role as Supreme Lackey, conveniently…
Words On Politics and Truth: An Oxymoron?
~ News Media. Politics. Pop Culture. Truth. ~ News Media and Presidential Campaigns ~ The style of campaigning is symbolic of – and results from – the central role played by the…
Now That Was A Convention
WOW! Talk about conventions! That was a convention, wow. Prime time entertainment at its best. Drama. Comedy. Music. Dance. Anticipation. And the must-have in any prime entertainment production: Leave The Audience Hanging.…
Words On Prejudices, Citizens, Imbeciles, and Elites.
Robert Heinlein. Abhijit Naskar. Bertolt Brecht. Robert Reich. You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic. Robert A. Heinlein.…
Words On Decisions, Movements, Courage
Dolores Huerta. Angela Davis. Jasilyn Charger. We do need women in civic life. We do need women to run for office, to be in political office. We need a feminist to…
JRB Is Asking America
Joe's Good Thing. It's All About Love, And Finishing The Job (more…)
Da Dems. That’s Them!
Dems Fighting Over ‘Virtual Roll Call’ To Nominate Joe Biden Before Convention ~ The Democratic National Committee says its virtual roll call will start next month. Some elected Democrats say it’s an…
Words On Accents, Access and Favoring Freedom
Ana Navarro. Stacey Abrams. Frederick Douglass. Why am I a liberal? Because I don't forget that I'm an immigrant and that I'm a Hispanic and that I have a Latin accent…
Oh No, Uncle Joe. Say It Ain’t So
~~ From Right Left Centre and In Between ~~ News Media Still The Same Old, Same Old: If It Bleeds – It Leads (more…)
Words On Pure Wind and Politics
George Jean Nathan. George Orwell. Shirley Chisholm. Politics. Pure Wind. Trivial Men. Politics is the diversion of trivial men who, when they succeed at it, become important in the eyes of…
Mike Johnson Is A Threat To America, Part Infinity
Mike Johnson, Republican, Speaker of the House of the United States of America, and second in line to the Presidency, on Tuesday led a group of dangerous red-tie sycophants to the New…
Words On Lessons For Mike Johnson
Abraham Lincoln. Warren G.Harding. Dwight D.Eisenhower. We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert…
Hate. America’s Fatal Disease
America today is overwhelmed by HATE and HATE will bring an end to ‘The Grand Experiment’. Yes, HATE has been an integral part of the American experiment from its beginning, bringing with…
Words On Freedom, Choices and Politics
Audre Lorde. Utah Phillips. Martin Luther King Jr. (more…)
Needed Today More Than Ever, In So Many Ways
Not Just A Song – Still A Call To Action Step Into It... (more…)
Answer: Obviously Not
Question: Have You No Shame ~ Sometimes, Somethings Just Make You Vomit A Little In Your Own Mouth ~ ~ After A While, Some People Get To Like The Taste and…
It’s Like Looking In A Mirror
Politics. Campaign Performance. Avoiding Truths. X/Twitter. TikTok. Instagram. Podcasts ABC - to - XYZ. News Media. Etc., Etc., Etc. ~~ News Media and Presidential Campaigns § The style of campaigning is symbolic…
Words On Politics and Freedom
Enchanted Gardens. False Promises. Immoral Flaws. Lewis. Malcolm X. Davis. Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant…
Words on Politics and Politicians: Impostor. A Thing. Fear.
Rousseau. Fromm. Martel. The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real…
Words On Politicians and Politics: Tomorrows, Remedies, And Morons
Churchill. Marx. Borowitz. A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain…
Sleaze-Bag Kevin Gets Balls Cut Off, With The Whole World Watching
Kevin McCarthy has groveled and slithered his way around and through the U.S. House of Representatives for years; this is no big secret. But now he has been outed, by the very…
Words On Politics
~ 2023 – Lessons Not Learned ~ Armed Militias. Electoral Disaster. Church Burnings vs Voter Fraud. We have been studying the armed militias with a group of more than 100…
Small Nooks, New World, The Big Bamboozle
Marcus Aurelius. Sarah Vowell. Carl Sagan. Casting aside other things, hold to the precious few; and besides bear in mind that every man lives only the present, which is an indivisible…
All True, Kinda…
King. Eisenhower. Mencken. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant. Martin…
American History; Yesterday Is Our Today
Nixon. Berlet/Lyons. Nichols. The knock on the door in the summer of 1995 surprised the Rev. James Carter. He wasn’t expecting company. It was a Sunday evening, and he’d planned to…
An American Story
As Republican Party members in the U.S. House of Representatives begin their Gestapo-like Committees and outings, I thought it appropriate to play an image-audio story (from September 2022) that is as relevant…
Emergency Call
Journalists in Ukraine Need Help
> Ukrainska Pravda <
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Those who cover the frontlines need first aid kits, medical supplies, flak jackets, helmets. Those trapped in towns and cities under fire need safe passage, relocation and humanitarian assistance.
More at International Federation of Journalists.
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Journalists in Gaza need your help. Here’s how:
International Media Support (IMS), the Danish-based media development organisation, is collecting donations for:
- Food, clothes, blankets and other utilities for journalists and their families
- Safety equipment and gear for journalists, such as press vests, helmets, cell phones and cameras.
- Psychosocial support for journalists
- Ongoing support to keep as many media outlets as possible operating.
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THE TRACKER
Freedom of the Press Foundation
Court says First Amendment means less free speech
[WHAAAAT ?!?!?!?]
If it sounds backward to use the First Amendment to undermine a law meant to protect free speech, that’s because it is.
Yet that’s just what a federal court of appeals did in a recent decision on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — the federal law that shields online services from legal liability for posts made by their users.
We explain on our website how the court’s nonsensical decision threatens online freedom of speech by journalists and everyone else.
Jobs & Events
Opportunity for Young Journalists
Rising D.C. reporters can apply for a yearlong reporting fellowship. The National Press Foundation is accepting applications for the 2025 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship.
Fellows will learn more about the White House, the Pentagon, the Supreme Court, the Capitol and other key Washington institutions. They’ll review politics and policy with regulators, lawmakers, experts and the best reporters in the business.
To apply, submit two recent work samples, a letter of support from an editor or supervisor and a brief autobiography. Application Deadline is Dec. 2
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Color Of Change, in partnership with the National Education Association, invites you to watch “Educating for Equity: Brown v Board of Education 70 Years Later,” a short video featuring a range of young and older thought leaders talking about the groundbreaking case and the challenges facing our public education system today. Participants discuss what we need to do to protect education moving forward.
Issues
The Reading List
Lie Machines
How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News Operations, and Political Operatives
by Philip N. Howard
Lie Machines is full of behind-the-scenes stories from the world’s biggest and most damagingly successful misinformation initiatives.
Howard, not only shows how these campaigns evolved from older propaganda operations but also exposes their new powers, gives us insight into their effectiveness, and explains how to shut them down. Howard is a sociologist and communication researcher who studies the impact of information technologies on democracy and social inequality. Book Here:
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The ReMindEr
Speakables
The New Normal? ~ The first tool of authoritarian regimes is always informational control—both in the gathering of information on the public through surveillance and the filtration of information to the public through owned media. In its early days, the Internet seemed to pose a challenge to authoritarian regimes, but with the advent of social media, we are watching the construction of architectures that fulfill the needs of every authoritarian regime: surveillance and information control. Authoritarian movements are possible only when the general public becomes habituated to—and numbed by—a new normal. Christopher Wylie.
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What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. ‘What to a slave is the 4th of July’. 1852. Frederick Douglass.
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The First ~ Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870 – 1942)
The first published female photo-journalist in the United States and the first female night photographer. She is best known for her freelance news photographs, particularly of the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, and portraits of places such as Bohemian Greenwich Village. Her trademarks were her self-described “ability to hustle” and her tenacity in overcoming gender barriers in her profession.
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Repeat After Me
And it gets you elected
